The computer is ugly, impractical, and anachronistic. The level of detail that he goes into about power is not worthwhile. The machine itself would either be preposterously expensive or too...
The computer is ugly, impractical, and anachronistic. The level of detail that he goes into about power is not worthwhile. The machine itself would either be preposterously expensive or too cheaply built to be worthwhile. It actually includes more dongles and connectors than I even own for my MacBook Donglebook Pro (I own two dongles, one HDMI to USB-C and... another HDMI to USB-C in case I don't have the first one).
I think that a modern sysadmin shouldn't really have the need for something like this, but maybe a Telecom worker would? In that case, all the connectors maybe make sense, but the form factor no longer does, since it would be in a Telecom van, and wouldn't have to have an arbitrarily small keyboard.
Generally when one is designing anything, it's useful to think about why all the things in that category have similar form factors. Laptops are a particular way not because some designer thought it would be nice if they looked that way, but because it's actually functional for many uses.
This is the kind of thing I'd put on datacenter tool carts. If I were in the habit of visiting a lot of datacenters to wrangle with lots of older hardware I'd have one in my trunk. I doubt I'd...
This is the kind of thing I'd put on datacenter tool carts. If I were in the habit of visiting a lot of datacenters to wrangle with lots of older hardware I'd have one in my trunk. I doubt I'd break it out unless I ran into some uncommon problems, like needing to get into the real terminal on a com port to look at a bricked unix/linux system. It seems like a swiss army knife aimed at a time that's mostly behind us now. That said, I've no idea what I'd expect to find in random datacenters in different countries. I have to imagine there are some places where a tool like this could still be very relevant if there's a predominance of older/strange hardware at play.
I'd buy one, it's everything a computer needs. The only improvement I could think of would to have an option for it to only run free software, with no intel ME backdoor or anything. Also with that...
I'd buy one, it's everything a computer needs. The only improvement I could think of would to have an option for it to only run free software, with no intel ME backdoor or anything.
Also with that many ports and features requiring so much extra hardware in such a small case, good luck fitting in a battery any bigger than a double A (the article mentions a "LiPol, 42W/hour battery").
I like the idea of a notebook with similar design principles as the CAT phone line (https://www.catphones.com/). But this, for as much work that's been put into it, looks: Unrealistic. Despite the...
I like the idea of a notebook with similar design principles as the CAT phone line (https://www.catphones.com/). But this, for as much work that's been put into it, looks:
Unrealistic. Despite the amount of work that went into it, it doesn't really seem like this was made by someone who has experience making laptops. This is the first red flag: If you want to do something differently from others, you should first have experience knowing why others do it the way they do.
Impractical. I've always hated this idea that you need a billion ports for a device to be useful. I'd rather carry around a small toolbelt of usb/eth/vga adapters (which I do anyway) than have to deal with a laptop this thick.
Plain ugly.
There's some good ideas in there though. I especially like the water-resistant keyboard.
I offer a different perspective on your second point: I much prefer a thicker device than to have the need of carrying a lot of dongles and adapters with me. A billion ports will cover much of my...
I offer a different perspective on your second point: I much prefer a thicker device than to have the need of carrying a lot of dongles and adapters with me. A billion ports will cover much of my needs and then some, to keep it safe :)
The computer is ugly, impractical, and anachronistic. The level of detail that he goes into about power is not worthwhile. The machine itself would either be preposterously expensive or too cheaply built to be worthwhile. It actually includes more dongles and connectors than I even own for my
MacBookDonglebook Pro (I own two dongles, one HDMI to USB-C and... another HDMI to USB-C in case I don't have the first one).I think that a modern sysadmin shouldn't really have the need for something like this, but maybe a Telecom worker would? In that case, all the connectors maybe make sense, but the form factor no longer does, since it would be in a Telecom van, and wouldn't have to have an arbitrarily small keyboard.
Generally when one is designing anything, it's useful to think about why all the things in that category have similar form factors. Laptops are a particular way not because some designer thought it would be nice if they looked that way, but because it's actually functional for many uses.
This is the kind of thing I'd put on datacenter tool carts. If I were in the habit of visiting a lot of datacenters to wrangle with lots of older hardware I'd have one in my trunk. I doubt I'd break it out unless I ran into some uncommon problems, like needing to get into the real terminal on a com port to look at a bricked unix/linux system. It seems like a swiss army knife aimed at a time that's mostly behind us now. That said, I've no idea what I'd expect to find in random datacenters in different countries. I have to imagine there are some places where a tool like this could still be very relevant if there's a predominance of older/strange hardware at play.
I'd buy one, it's everything a computer needs. The only improvement I could think of would to have an option for it to only run free software, with no intel ME backdoor or anything.
Also with that many ports and features requiring so much extra hardware in such a small case, good luck fitting in a battery any bigger than a double A (the article mentions a "LiPol, 42W/hour battery").
I like the idea of a notebook with similar design principles as the CAT phone line (https://www.catphones.com/). But this, for as much work that's been put into it, looks:
There's some good ideas in there though. I especially like the water-resistant keyboard.
I offer a different perspective on your second point: I much prefer a thicker device than to have the need of carrying a lot of dongles and adapters with me. A billion ports will cover much of my needs and then some, to keep it safe :)
But wouldn't you say that a thin laptop with one super dongle takes objectively less space?
Yes, but practically speaking, the dimension of the size reduction is also relevant. I very much prefer a thicker notebook than to carry dongles.
It's like the laptop equivilent of Homer's car
Hah, perfect analogy.